"Fat" Ronaldo is still Ronaldo. Period.

Brazil's top league just ended their season. It's WAY too hard for me to figure out how this season actually works (not to sound cocky, but that's saying something). But I do know that Ronaldo finished the season with 14 goals in only 15 games for Corinthians. They also won the Campeonato Paulista and the Copa do Brasil. Is this a coincidence? Surely it must be because Ronaldo is "fat", right? He can't possibly be good if he is "overweight".

Truth be told he still performs, even to this day, despite all the negative things the world has said about him for about 3 years now. True, he doesn't fit the mold of the traditional Brazilian soccer player. So when everyone sees him being a little chubbier than in 2002, everyone assumes that he is no longer good, which is not true.

I believe this whole "fat" thing started to happen in early 2006. He tore some leg muscle or something (can't quite remember the specific injury) for Real Madrid and was injured for a large chunk of the 2nd half of the season. This was not his first leg injury. He had major knee issues in '98 and '00. In '00, one doctor told him he may never play again. When the '06 injury happened, I believe he got a little depressed that he keeps getting injured at crucial times in his career. This led to him failing to rehab properly, which is no excuse on a professional level. But he is also a human who still cannot get away from serious injuries. Bottom line is depression happens, even to great athletes.

When Brazil met to train for the 2006 World Cup pictures of Ronaldo training showed up and people started to call him fat. True he weighed more than he did in 2002, 20 pounds more to be exact, but he had been injured and assured people with a few weeks of training he would be back to his normal weight. He was slowly losing the weight in the summer, but his production on the field was not slow by any means. He scored 3 goals in 5 games, thus breaking the all time record for goals scored in the World Cup tournament. Pretty good for a fat guy.

The shocking upset loss to the French ended his '06 tournament. He went back to Madrid but was still hovering at 6 ft. and 180 pounds and Fabio Capello, the coach at the time, thought he was not training hard enough. So Ronaldo fell completely out of favor to make way for Ruud van Nistelrooy. He went to a doctor to look at why he wasn't losing the extra weight he gained from that early '06 injury. Ronaldo came back saying he had a developed a problem called hypothyroidism. While the explanation for that term is for another time, place, and blog, this somewhat explains the depression and weight gain from the recent injury. Some believe this and some don't, but I take his word for it because his career, better yet his goal-scoring livelihood, was at stake.

But Capello was having none of it. In the 06/07 season, Ronaldo played in 7 Real Madrid games scoring 3 goals; he started 4 of those games.

In January 2007, Ronaldo needed to go. He wasn't playing and Real Madrid were unsympathetic to his gland problem. AC Milan showed interest but Real wouldn't let him leave. After much protesting from the player, Madrid would agree to a move if Ronaldo paid them for the rest of his contract. What a bunch of A-holes! He gave them some of the best years of his life, scored 83 goals for the club, worked hard trying to lose his excess weight, and they won't let him leave when he isn't in the coach's plans. Fanastic.

AC Milan was a new hope, a fresh start. But a hamstring injury followed shortly by his third ruptured knee cap ligament (talk about unlucky) led to his dismissal after one year at the San Siro. But when he did play, he played well scoring 9 goals in 20 games, along with 4 assists.

If he didn't face serious injuries at multiple points in his career, there is no doubt in my mind he would be considered by everyone to be the greatest goal scorer to ever walk the planet. By the time he played for both Barcelona and Inter Milan, he was only 21 years old. You have your Cristiano Ronaldo's, your Wayne Rooney's and your Lionel Messi's. But the real Ronaldo led the way for clubs in the modern game to even take a chance on young players. He was doing things in the late 90's that the best players in the world at that time could only imagine doing. He gave these players a blueprint for how to succeed so early in your career.

I feel a little sad when someone brings up Ronaldo and they mean Cristiano. It's not right. What does the real Ronaldo have to do? He has won 2 World Cups and just about every imaginable individual award a striker can earn. I mean every award. As in 45 awards. It also saddens me that people who started paying attention to soccer around 2005 have no idea what they are saying when they say "The Brazilian Ronaldo sucks nowadays."

To those that say the Brazilian league isn't good, think about this: where do the world class Brazilians come from? Where do they get their start? European clubs don't buy players that are total crap from Brazil and turn them into huge talents. Sure they tweak a few things about their game, but they are already amazing players. This is the best league in South America for a reason. Top to bottom, every team is extremely competitive and upsets always happen (but are they really upsets, then?). Ronaldo is playing against the future of world class defenders, amazing midfielders, and unbelievable goalies....and he is making them look silly. I don't mean to infer that Europe isn't the best place to go, because it undoubtedly is, but Brazil has a great league that doesn't get the recognition I think it deserves.

Don't be suprised if he is on Brazil's WC roster next summer.

Is he still "fat"?

P.S. To prove his goal scoring credentials, he has scored 312 goals in 591 games for club and country with only 26 goals coming from 29 Brazilian league games. Seeing how Pele never played in Europe.....I'll let you finish that thought.